by Samuel Best
“What do you suppose it is?” Henry asked, straightening up and cracking his back with a satisfied sigh.
“It’s a burrow,” said Niku. He wiped his palms on his body suit as he stood, smearing it with blood. “Where do you think the hooting is coming from?”
As if in response to his question, something hooted from within the hole near Henry’s feet. He bent down once more to look.
Merritt said, “I wouldn’t do—” just as something shrieked from the hole and shot out of it. A brown blur smacked Henry’s shoulder as it flew past, sending him spinning to the ground.
Ivan shouted something in Russian and ran back to join the group. They clustered together around Henry, who rocked on the ground on his back, squeezing a gash on his bleeding shoulder and breathing hard through clenched teeth.
“There!” said Niku, pointing at a nearby pillar.
“I don’t see anything,” said Merritt.
“Halfway up, hugging the rock.”
Merritt’s eyes strained in the darkness, but all he saw was the chipped pattern on the flat side of the pillar. Then something moved against the pattern, and he discerned the outline of an animal.
Roughly the size of a giant bat, entirely muddy brown, it sprawled against the rock on its flat belly, its four bony legs splayed wide. A crested head bobbed on a thick, corded neck. Its crest was balanced by a beak-like mouth that opened vertically in a silent yawn. A secondary mouth opened horizontally within, stretching the corners of the outer beak. It had no eyes to speak of, instead possessing a matte patch of darker skin above its beak that wrapped halfway around its crested head. Thin membranes connected each forelimb to the one behind it, and seemed to flutter with each rapid breath. In place of a tail, a rigid spike as long as its body protruded from its leathery skin between its two clawed back legs.
With the appearance of this animal, the gentle hooting that had led Merritt and the others deep into the pillar field had ceased altogether. Instead, a chorus of a shrieks echoed out from the base of every pillar.
A susurration of claws on rock whispered around the group as more of the creatures slowly emerged from their dwellings, climbing the pillars.
“There must be hundreds of them,” said Merritt nervously.
He stood with his back to Niku and Ivan. Henry grunted as he stood up to join them.
A whisper of clicks drifted through the air as the creatures tapped their claws against the pillars, growing louder and louder, until they all stopped abruptly. Acting in unison, as if they were mirror copies of each other, they shifted against the rock to face the same direction.
“Something is coming,” Niku said.
Merritt looked north, the way he and the others were headed. The ground’s texture had changed. Instead of narrow lanes of jagged rock between pillars, the lanes were now seemingly paved with large, smooth, hexagonal stones.
One of the stones skittered out of view.
“I don’t think they’re here for us,” said Merritt.
Faster than he could track, the spike-tailed animals on the pillars darted back into their burrows with a swish of air.
“Back to the arches,” Merritt said.
“What is it?” asked Ivan, stepping past him.
“The ground is moving.”
Ivan’s eyebrows went up in surprise as more hexagonal stones skittered into view, crowding the narrow lanes between pillars as they rushed toward the group’s position.
He turned quickly and fled in the opposite direction. Merritt jogged behind Henry as he navigated the jagged rocks underfoot, clutching his bleeding shoulder.
“They’re moving fast,” Niku said from behind.
When Merritt reached the first arch, Ivan was already halfway up one side, talking quietly to himself in Russian as he strained to pull himself higher.
The next arch in line seemed to have more natural foot-holds, so Merritt quickly guided Henry over to it and stood at the wide base while the older man began his ascent.
Niku scrambled up the side of Ivan’s arch as one of the hexagonal stones skittered out from behind a pillar, heading straight for Merritt’s legs. He jumped up and grabbed hold of the arch, hugging the cool rock as the hexagonal stone bumped into the arch below. It wasn’t huge — perhaps only as large as a dinner plate— but that didn’t mean Merritt wanted to be on the ground next to it.
Segmented legs swept out from beneath the hexagonal stone, scrabbling at the pillar as the creature tried to climb up. All it managed to do was scratch at the lead-colored mineral, spewing dust and rock slivers in every direction. Up close, Merritt could see small pyramid-shaped protuberances on its back.
With a screech, one of the burrow animals shot out of its hole and crashed into the hexagonal stone, flipping it onto its back. A dozen sharp, segmented legs pumped furiously. The screeching animal leapt onto it tail-first, driving its rigid spike into the hexagonal crab-creature’s underbelly with a wet crunch. Moving in rapid fits and starts, the hunter hauled its kill across the ground, toward its burrow. Both animals disappeared into the black pit at the base of a nearby pillar.
Merritt climbed higher as more hex-crabs skittered past, their hard legs scrabbling loudly over loose rocks. He made it to the top, next to Henry, who lay against the mostly-flat upper arch on his stomach, panting from exertion.
Brown blurs shot out from their pillar holes with a screech to snatch the crabs as they ran past.
From Merritt’s vantage point, he could see the borders of the pillar field. The ground had changed from the glistening, springy moss-like covering to a solid vista of smooth, gray stone.
“It’s a migration,” said Henry, his tired voice filled with awe despite his shoulder wound. “Look. There are so many that some are forced to pass through the pillars.”
At the northern edge of the pillar field, in the direction from which they seemed to be traveling, the hex-crabs broke against the first line of pillars like waves against a cliff, rising in a boiling mound of churning, segmented legs as they tried to avoid passing the threshold. Most succeeded in joining the mass of creatures that swelled to either side, skirting the pillar field. Others were forced onto the rocky ground and immediately began to scurry through the field to reconnect with the herd on the far side.
These unlucky critters faced a gauntlet of hungry, screeching, pillar-dwelling animals.
“They move a lot faster when they’re not with the group,” said Niku, looking down from the arch he shared with Ivan.
Theirs flattened out more than Merritt’s at the top, providing a less uncomfortable spot to rest.
“They’re afraid,” said Henry. “It reminds me of wildebeest.”
“What-a-beast?” Ivan asked.
“Wildebeest. You wouldn’t know them, I imagine. They were part of one of the largest annual land migrations on Earth. Large animals. Huge. Each year, they were forced to cross rivers teeming with hungry crocodiles. There was no way around, so thousands of animals never made it to the opposite shore.”
“Why they didn’t learn?” asked Ivan.
“Crossing the rivers was necessary,” Henry answered. “The carcasses of those wildebeest nourished an entire ecosystem. They were simply obeying the natural order.”
A group of three hex-crabs darted beneath Merritt’s arch. One by one, they were snatched into burrows.
“Looks like we’re going to be here a while,” he said. “Try not to roll off.”
He rested his cheek against the cool stone of the arch, and tried to sleep, but all he could do was think of Gavin.
Hours later, Merritt woke with a start and nearly fell off the pillar. He hugged it tightly as he lay on his stomach, shivering against the stone.
It was still night. Niku, Ivan, and Henry were all passed out, hugging their own piece of arch, their legs dangling loosely to either side.
A lone hex-crab scurried across the ground below, but proceeded unmolested to the far end of the field, where it rejoined its group.
; Perhaps the hunters have had their fill, thought Merritt.
Yet, surely with the large number of pillars and the comparatively low number of hex-crabs that were forced to cross the field, the hunters should still be feasting.
Several more crabs skittered past without incident.
An idea tickled the back of Merritt’s mind, something that had been floating around, not quite fully formed, tugging at the edge of clarity.
Both the spike-tailed hunters and the hex-crabs spent their days in hiding. The hunters concealed themselves in rock burrows, and the crabs hid in vast numbers, locked together like a moving land mass.
Merritt realized that, from the sky, the field of crabs would look like nothing more than a smooth patch of ground. From what he’d seen by observing them at the edges of the pillar field, they moved so slowly as a group that a quick glance would reveal no movement at all.
Both animal species they had encountered lived in hiding, he thought. But why?
A single hunter hooted from its burrow, then all was silent. The few hex-crabs that had been scrambling like mad below Merritt’s arch had stopped in place, tucking their legs under their shells to rest on the rocky ground.
In the silence, a rush of wind swelled far above the pillar field. A deep, slow THWUP sounded from the sky, like a sail snapping as it caught the wind. Then came another.
Merritt looked up.
Something huge moved across the night sky far above, blotting out the stars. It passed overhead, a black silhouette in the darkness. Giant wings reached out from a wide body.
THWUP.
The wings beat the air as the beast flew past the field, the stars disappearing as it passed and blinking back into view in its wake.
After the sound of its wings had faded, the burrow-dwelling animals resumed their hunt. They darted between pillars as the hex-crabs scurried away, spearing them through their top-shells with spiked tails and dragging them out of sight.
Merritt looked down from the sky, eyes wide with fear, his heart pounding in his chest. He rested his cheek against the cool arch, hugged it tightly, and wished for morning.
TULLIVER
The food options certainly hadn’t improved.
Tulliver stared down at the metal plate in his hands. A dented spoon rested in a puddle of soy mush that oozed clear liquid from its wet edges.
Tulliver had walked right to the front of the line after a queue was already formed, and no one said a thing.
Some were too exhausted to make a fuss. Half of them owed him a crop-debt in exchange for services rendered during the voyage. They probably expected him to forget about it if they just kept their mouths shut long enough.
They were wrong.
Let them believe that’s the case, said a voice in his head which was not his own. You could get away with so much more.
It was Ivan’s voice, though he spoke very clearly, with only a slight hint of Russian accent.
Tulliver sniffed and left the tent, searching for a place to sit. The voices in his head had started up again after arriving on Galena. They had left him in peace for most of the voyage, but something about this new world had stirred the pot, so to speak.
The line for food extended out of the open-sided mess tent behind him, fifty people long. A few survivors had trickled in over the course of the six-hour night, claiming they had been forced to wait for the gray ground to slide past their escape pods.
Tulliver sat on a mostly-dry patch of ground on the side of the hill overlooking the settlement. He spooned the cold soy mush into his mouth, choking it down in three quick gulps to get it over with, then tossed the empty metal plate aside and belched.
The texture would improve after the first soyflower harvest. Hopefully someone remembered to pack some spices in the limited supplies that made it to the surface. Tulliver shuddered at the thought of eating the cold, oozing, flavorless, vat-grown mush for another month or more. He plucked out a fibrous brown thread weaving through the topsoil and inspected it absentmindedly. Maybe the chef could start a fire and warm the soy mush for lunch instead of serving it cold. Tulliver wondered who he could talk to in order to make that happen.
He frowned as a revelation teased his mind, dancing just beyond reach. He rolled the soft, fibrous root between his fingers and breathed loudly through his nose, as he always did while concentrating.
The muscles of his face loosened when he figured it out. He did so by working backward from a single question: How was the soy mush brought down to the surface?
According to his sources on the ship, the Halcyon had remote-delivered much of the colony’s infrastructure while in orbit during previous visits. Things like rigid tents, build-it-yourself house kits, empty storage silos, and basic farming equipment were consolidated to fit into unmanned surface-delivery systems — cubes of various sizes with rockets on all eight corners. The cubes had only enough fuel to reach the surface, then became, more or less, lawn ornaments.
Yet a tank of liquid food — enough to feed a colony of hungry settlers until the first harvest came in — would be too heavy for the surface-delivery cubes.
It would need to come down in a shuttle, piloted by the wardens.
Tulliver stood, puzzling over the implications of his revelation while the colonists milled about the nascent colony below.
If his suspicions were true, that would mean the shuttle was still on the surface, yet it was nowhere in sight. The wardens had probably landed it a safe distance from camp, fearful that a terrified colonist might try to break orbit.
It would certainly be possible, but, with no Halcyon to dock with, the pilot would remain adrift above Galena, unable to return to the surface for lack of fuel.
The urge to relieve himself seized Tulliver with a sudden fierceness.
He walked along the side of the hill, following its broad curve until the colony was out of sight behind him. Entering a stand of the towering bare tree trunks, he hurried to a large bush of sharp, densely-woven, branches — almost like a monstrous tumbleweed — and relieved himself of last night’s water. From what he’d heard, latrines would eventually be constructed somewhere nearby, but Tulliver thought it prudent to give back to nature whenever possible.
As he turned back toward the settlement, a pair of dirty work boots on the other side of the bush caught his eye. Moving quietly on the soft ground, Tulliver stepped around the bush to find a dead man lying on the ground on his side, curled up in a fetal position, his skin ghostly white.
The man’s bloodshot eyes bulged in their sockets. His tongue protruded from his mouth, black and swollen. He clutched a grapefruit-sized brown fruit in one stiff hand, several large bites taken from its discolored flesh.
Tulliver knelt down and put his thumb on the man’s forehead, tilting his face up. It was the Halcyon’s equipment foreman. Tulliver had dealt with him often throughout the trip — when the man could be found. He had a knack for avoiding interaction with the rest of the crew. Tulliver suspected he would not be missed.
He poked the brown fruit, then rubbed his fingers together thoughtfully.
Where will they put all the bodies? he wondered.
Three loud bells sounded from the direction of the main camp. Orientation was about to begin.
Like most of the other colonists, Tulliver had spent last night under the stars, nothing between him and the moist ground but a thin blanket. He had slept well enough, but awoke with wet clothes and a stiff neck. There were rumblings amongst the other colonists that the wardens would be putting up more tents until they had a chance to assign the housing kits.
By the time Tulliver made it back to the settlement, most of the survivors had gathered around a makeshift platform next to the mess tent, standing in a loose half-circle around the two wardens running the show. Tulliver maneuvered his way to the front of the crowd. He stood a head taller than everyone else, though as he looked at one of the wardens up on the platform, he wondered if that man wasn’t taller yet.
He wore the
same tight-fitting gray warden’s uniform as the much younger Diego, who stood beside him, yet the material of his clothing bulged over his muscular arms, legs, and chest. Black hair hugged his skull in a strict military cut. He clenched his smooth, square jaw while he concentrated on the screen of his tablet, clutching it like a child’s toy in his meaty hand. Like Diego, he had a thin stun-baton slung over one shoulder.
A true giant of a man, thought Tulliver.
An expectant silence fell over the crowd. A cool breeze flapped loose canvas on a nearby tent.
There were a few familiar faces in the crowd, and the rest Tulliver assumed had gone into a stasis pod just after leaving Earth. Everyone who stayed awake had wandered over to The Velvet Speakeasy eventually, even if they didn’t become regulars.
Tulliver spotted Gavin standing at the edge of the platform, bags under his eyes. The boy hadn’t slept, or hadn’t slept well. A thin man with a face like a weasel stood next to him, black-stained fingertips resting on Gavin’s shoulders. He made eye contact with Tulliver, then stepped behind Gavin, blocking him from view.
A young boy and girl were the only other children in the crowd. They were roughly the same age as Gavin, and stood hugging their mother’s legs. The big warden looked down at them and smiled tightly. Given the way she stood near his side of the platform, facing the crowd more than the wardens, Tulliver guessed they were a couple.
He handed his tablet to Diego and clasped his hands in front of his waist.
“Let’s begin,” he said in a deep, booming voice. “I’m Warden Cohen. This is Warden Ramirez. Some of you were expecting to go back to Earth. None of you were expecting to be stranded.” He looked over the crowd with icy blue eyes, letting his words sink in. “Whether you are farmers, ship stewards, or workmen, I want to make one thing absolutely clear from the beginning. Despite the tragedy of the Halcyon, there is still rule of law. As government representatives, colony wardens are responsible for upholding a predetermined code and enforcing peace. Farmers must still honor their contracts. You are now citizens of Earth’s first extrasolar colony. We are alone, yes, but that is no excuse for anarchy.” He glanced at his tablet. “At last count, there are seven unclaimed farming contracts. If they are not claimed within the month, I will open them up for renewal. They will be awarded to those who work hard for the betterment of the colony. Apprenticeship on existing farms will benefit your application.”
